Friday, October 7, 2011

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Being Aware of An Emotion Without Labeling

Question: How
can one be aware of an emotion without naming or labeling it? If I am aware of
a feeling, I seem to know what that feeling is almost immediately after it
arises. Or do you mean something different when you say, “Do not name?”

Jiddu
Krishnamurti: Why do we name anything? Why do we give a label
to a flower, to a person, to a feeling? Either to communicate one’s feelings,
to describe the flower and so on and so on; or to identify oneself with that
feeling. Is not that so? I name something, a feeling, to communicate it. I am
angry. Or I identify myself with that feeling in order to strengthen it or to
dissolve it or to do something about 1t. We give a name to something, to a
rose, to communicate it to others; or, by giving it a name, we think we have
understood it.

We say, ”That is a rose,” rapidly look at it and go on. By
giving it a name, we think we have understood it; we have classified it and think
that thereby we have understood the whole content and beauty of that flower. By
giving a name to something, we have merely put it into a category and we think
we have understood it; we don’t look at it more closely. If we do not give it a
name, however, we are forced to look at it. That is, we approach the flower or
whatever it is with a newness, with a new quality of examination; we look at it
as though we had never looked at it before.

Naming is a very convenient way of disposing of things and
of people - by saying that they are Germans, Japanese, Americans, Hindus, you
can give them a label and destroy the label. If you do not give a label to
people you are forced to look at them and then it is much more difficult to
kill somebody.

You can destroy the label with a bomb and feel righteous,
but if you do not give a label and must therefore look at the individual thing
- whether it is a man or a flower or an incident or an emotion - then you are
forced to consider your relationship with it, and with the action following. So
terming or giving a label is a very convenient way of disposing of anything, of
denying, condemning or justifying it. That is one side of the question. What is
the core from which you name, what is the center which is always naming, choosing,
labeling.

We all feel there is a center, a core, do we not - from
which we are acting, from which we are judging, from which we are naming? What
is that center—that core? Some would like to think it is a spiritual essence,
God, or what you will. So let us find out what is that core, that center, which
is naming, terming, judging. Surely that core is memory, isn’t it? A series of
sensations, identified and enclosed - the past, given life through the present.
That core, that center, feeds on the present through naming, labeling,
remembering.

We will see presently, as we unfold it, that so long as this
center, this core, exists, there can be no understanding. It is only with the
dissipation of this core that there is understanding, because, after all, that
core is memory; memory of various experiences which have been given names,
labels, identifications. With those named and labeled experiences, from that center,
there is acceptance and rejection, determination to be or not to be, according
to the sensations, pleasures and pains of the memory of experience.

So
that center is
the word.

If
you do
not name that
center,

is
there a center?

That
is if
you do not think

in
terms of words, if
you

do
not use words, can
you think?

Thinking comes into being through verbalization; or
verbalization begins to respond to thinking. The center, the core is the memory
of innumerable experiences of pleasure and pain, verbalized. Watch it in
yourself, please, and you will see:

That
words have
become

much
more important,

labels
have become

much
more important,

than
the substance; and

we
live on words.

For us, words like truth, God, have become very important,
or the feeling which those words represent. When we say the word ‘American’,
‘Christian’, ‘Hindu’ or the word ‘anger’ - we are the word representing the
feeling. But we don’t know what that feeling is, because the word has become
important. When you call yourself a Buddhist, a Christian, what does the word
mean, what is the meaning behind that word, which you have never examined?

Our
center, the
core is the word,

the
label. If
the label does not matter, if
what matters is that which is behind
the label,

then
you are able to inquire but
if you are identified with
the label and stuck with it, you
cannot proceed.

And we are identified with the label: the house, the form,
the name, the furniture, the bank account, our opinions, our stimulants and so
on and so on. We are all those things - those things being represented by a
name. The things have become important, the names, the labels; and therefore
the center, the core, is the word.

If
there is no
word, no
label,there
is no
center, is
there?

There is a dissolution, there is an emptiness - not the
emptiness of fear, which is quite a different thing. There is a sense of being
as nothing; because you have removed all the labels or rather because you have
understood why you give labels to feelings and ideas you are completely new,
are you not?

There is no center from which you are acting. The center,
which is the word, has been dissolved. The label has been taken away and where
are you as the center? You are there but there has been a transformation. That
transformation is a little bit frightening; therefore, you do not proceed with
what is still involved in it; you are already beginning to judge it, to decide
whether you like it or don’t like it. You don’t proceed with the understanding
of what is coming but you are already judging, which means that you have a center
from which you are acting.

Therefore
you stay fixed the
moment you judge;

the
words ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ become
important.

But
what happens when you do not name?

You look at an emotion, at a sensation, more directly and
therefore have quite a different relationship to it, just as you have to a
flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew.

When
you do
not name a
group of people,

you
are compelled
to look at
each individual face and
not treat
them all
as the mass.

Therefore you are much more alert, much more observing, more
understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, love; but if you treat them all
as the mass, it is over.

If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it
arises. When you label, is the feeling different from the label? Or does the
label awaken the feeling? Please think it over. When we label, most of us
intensify the feeling. The feeling and the naming are instantaneous. If there
were a gap between naming and feeling, then you could find out if the feeling
is different from the naming and then you would be able to deal with the
feeling without naming it.

The problem is this, is it not? How to be free from a
feeling which we name, such as anger? Not how to subjugate it, sublimate it,
suppress it, which are all idiotic and immature, but how to be really free from
it? To be really free from it, we have to discover whether the word is more
important than the feeling. The word ‘anger’ has more significance than the
feeling itself. Really to find that out there must be a gap between the feeling
and the naming. That is one part.

If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not
functioning merely because of words or if I do not think in terms of words,
images or symbols, which most of us do - then what happens?

Surely the mind then is not merely the observer. When the mind
is not thinking in terms of words, symbols, images, there is no thinker
separate from the thought, which is the word. Then the mind is quiet, is it
not? Not made quiet, it is quiet.

When the mind is really quiet, then the feelings which arise
can be dealt with immediately.

It
is only when we give
names to feelings and thereby strengthen them that the feelings have continuity; they
are stored up in the center, from
which we give further labels, either to strengthen or to
communicate them.

When the mind is no longer the center, as the thinker made
up of words, of past experiences - which are all memories, labels, stored up
and put in categories, in pigeonholes - when it is not doing any of those
things, then, obviously the mind is quiet. It is no longer bound, it has no
longer a center as the me - my house, my achievement, my work - which are still
words, giving impetus to feeling and thereby strengthening memory.

When none of these things are happening, the mind is very
quiet. That state is not negation. On the contrary, to come to that point, you
have to go through all this, which is an enormous undertaking; it is not merely
learning a few sets of words and repeating them like a school-boy, “not to
name, not to name.”

To follow through all its implications, to experience it, to
see how the mind works and thereby come to that point when you are no longer
naming, which means that there is no longer a center apart from thought -
surely this whole process is real meditation.

When the mind is really tranquil, then it is possible for
that which is immeasurable to come into being. Any other process, any other
search for reality, is merely self-projected, homemade and therefore unreal.
But this process is arduous and it means that the mind has to be constantly
aware of everything that is inwardly happening to it.

To
come to
this point, there
can be no judgment or
justification from
the beginning to the end; not
that this
is an end.

There is no end, because there is something extraordinary
still going on. This is no promise. It is for you to experiment, to go into
yourself deeper and deeper and deeper, so that all the many layers of the center
are dissolved and you can do it rapidly or lazily.

It is extraordinarily interesting to watch the process of
the mind, how it depends on words, how the words stimulate memory or
resuscitate the dead experience and give life to it. In that process the mind
is living either in the future or in the past.

Therefore words have an enormous significance,
neurologically as well as psychologically. And please do not learn all this
from me or from a book. You cannot learn it from another or find it in a book.
What you learn or find in a book will not be the real.

But you can experience it, you can watch yourself in action,
watch yourself thinking, see how you think, how rapidly you are naming the
feeling as it arises - and watching the whole process frees the mind from its center.
Then the mind, being quiet, can receive that which is eternal.